Unplugging the free Wi-Fi

Free Wi-Fi has become more or less a standard amenity for independent coffeehouses around Seattle. It's good for business.

Usually.

As Glenn Fleishman reports at Wi-Fi Networking News, free Wi-Fi can cause quite a bit of grief if it becomes too popular. Victrola Coffee & Art on Seattle's Capitol Hill, a neighborhood cafes I frequent, now unplugs its free Wi-Fi on weekends. Why? Its tables had become a sea of laptops, and too many people were spending too many hours sitting there tapping away:

It initially brought in more people, [co-owner Jen Strongin] said, but over the past year "we noticed a significant change in the environment of the cafe." Before Wi-Fi, "People talked to each other, strangers met each other," she said. Solitary activities might involve reading and writing, but it was part of the milieu. "Those people co-existed with people having conversations," said Strongin.

But "over the past year it seems that nobody talks to each other any more," she said. On the weekends, 80 to 90 percent of tables and chairs are taken up by people using computers. ...

Worse than just the sheer number of laptop users, Strongin noted, is that many of these patrons will camp six to eight hours--and not buy anything. This seemed astounding to me, but she said that it was typical, not unusual.

The story has definitely struck a nerve: readers are posting voluminous -- and very interesting -- comments both on Glenn's site and on a related Slashdot thread. Emerging themes suggest that the "corrosion" of cafe culture they've seen at Victrola is pretty widespread, and that wide-open free Wi-Fi may become a thing of the past.

Update: Victrola's chief roaster and Net guru gives the employees' perspective about all this on his own blog ("free wi-fi is electronic cocaine").